


ozymandias

by oogenesis



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Surreal, deck theme symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 17:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8023090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oogenesis/pseuds/oogenesis
Summary: he is sitting at the mirror painting his face back on and you sit in the corner and watch him.





	ozymandias

**Author's Note:**

> i've been tearing through zexal and writing a whole bunch of prose-poems about the arclights in the process because they're killing me softly. this one was long enough and good enough to post on its own i think

he is sitting at the mirror painting his face back on and you sit in the corner and watch him.

his ankles are neatly crossed, the strings slack. the paint and lacquer and enamel is spread out before him, and you watch his wrist move in quick neat strokes. you wonder what happened to him this time - if it came off on the pillow at night while he slept restless sleep, if it washed off in the shower in his naked vulnerability. if he cried it off.

or perhaps someone might have just cracked it, a full blow to the face that broke the paint and broke the varnish on it, left him reeling and gasping with the bare wood of underneath full-fledged exposed. you've seen it happen.

whatever it was, the repair is already far enough along that you cannot discern the cause. he has painted over the melting of it or the cracks in it and is now working on the details, on the parts that make him look human.

"you're making your eyelashes longer than they used to be," you say, swinging your legs.

his hand shrugs in its trajectory. he has to hold his own strings at times like these, going behind the puppeteer's back - the precision with which he can paint his own face back on is a testament to a great deal of practice.

" _and_ better cheekbones. stop that."

"what?" he says, and turns briefly to face you. "i'm allowed." he hasn't painted back over his mouth yet - it is still bare flesh tones, something waiting to be molded into a human.

"it's vanity," you say, but the issue isn't a pressing one to you. you fall silent and watch him turn back to his work. of course it's vanity. he is layers of pretty varnish and enamel over raw untreated wood, his wrists and joints so gracefully painted you can't even see where the strings connect. there is vanity and there is marionette and the person is somewhere in the middle, in the thin thin line where they bleed together. or perhaps, buried underneath.

he has moved on to his mouth. there is a contemptuous curl in it that matches the haughty slash of his eyebrows. he has become very good at painting faces, making faces, drawing it on. they are so vivid and expressive they usually fool you. you think he fools himself. he leans into the mirror and with great concentration curves the lines of the right corner into just the right angle of smirk.

you think, a sneer of cold command. you think of painted-carved faces lying shattered in the sand. you think of your own buried-deep dug-up artifacts, and you think that someday far in the future someone will find this daintily made puppet with its delicately painted face and write a poem about it. you wonder if they'll write a poem about you too, if you've molded yourself into enough of a person out of the soft obedient ragdoll you are - enough to not simply rot away into the dust.

as usual there is nothing to be done about the great crack that splits down the right side of his face, the paint peeling stiffly away from the raw unvarnished wood. as usual he paints it into a scar that is dashing, intriguing, roguish without being repulsive. without inspiring pity. he has a very good hand for these nuances.

a final coat of varnish and he washes off the brushes, clicks the lids of the paints shut, stows them back in the drawer. lifts himself up out of the chair with the painstaking manipulation of his own strings. for once you cannot see the wooden cross far above his head from which his movements dangle; you are both a little free here. in your own little space. he wipes the smudges of paint off his lacquered wooden hands and says, "shall we go?"

**Author's Note:**

> anyway please leave a comment on this if you can! i feel like this represents something of a breakthrough in my writing style, or at least something that demonstrates how much i've improved lately. so feedback would be really great thank you!


End file.
